Peace and Justice Post

McClellan’s Dish

Counterpunch, November 22, 2007

By DAVE LINDORFF

The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

There was one problem. It was not true.

I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the Vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the President himself.

–Excerpt from Scott McClellan’s forthcoming book “What Happened”
(Public Affairs Books, due out in April 2008)

With that one little statement, released on the Public Affairs Books website this week, all excuses for not impeaching President Bush and Vice President Cheney, not to mention indicting Cheney (who of course has no immunity from prosecution while in office), have evaporated.

Here is rock-solid evidence from a man who, as press secretary, was privy to the inner workings of the White House, of a vile conspiracy involving the two top men in the Bush/Cheney administration, as well as their top three staffpeople, to expose the identity of an important CIA undercover operative, Valerie Plame, and then, when caught, to obstruct a criminal investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, into that crime.

Keep reading . . . 

 Huffington Post

Washington Post   |   November 21, 2007 01:48 AM

President Bush yesterday offered his strongest support of embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying the general “hasn’t crossed the line” and “truly is somebody who believes in democracy.”

Bush spoke nearly three weeks after Musharraf declared emergency rule, sacked members of the Supreme Court and began a roundup of journalists, lawyers and human rights activists. Musharraf’s government yesterday released about 3,000 political prisoners, although 2,000 remain in custody, according to the Interior Ministry.

The comments, delivered in an interview with ABC News anchor Charles Gibson, contrasted with previous administration statements — including by Bush himself — expressing grave concern over Musharraf’s actions. In his first public comments on the crisis two weeks ago, Bush said his aides bluntly warned Musharraf that his emergency measures “would undermine democracy.”

Read entire story here.

From Times  online, November 22, 2007

Pakistan court rules in Musharraf’s favour

President Musharraf could step down as head of the military as soon as the end of this week

Image :1 of 2

Jenny Booth and agencies

Pakistan’s Supreme Court today cleared the last legal hurdle for President Pervez Musharraf to be confirmed in office after winning fresh presidential elections last month.

The court – stuffed with judges sympathetic to General Musharraf – today took less than an hour to throw out the sixth and final legal challenge to the constitutionality of his standing for office while still in the military.

General Musharraf is now expected to doff his uniform and quit as head of the army within days, in order to continue the appearance of moving from military dictatorship to civilian democracy.

“The petition is dismissed,” said chief justice Abdul Hameed Dogar.

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The Times of India, 22 Nov 2007

WASHINGTON: Warning that another rigged election would add “even more salt to Pakistan’s open wounds”, a prominent US expert has said political trends lines in the country are likely to grow worse the longer President Pervez Musharraf remains in any position of leadership.

“The longer Musharraf wears either of his two hats, the longer it will take for Pakistan to hold sufficiently credible elections upon which a semblance of political normalcy can resume,” Michael Krepon, the Co-Founder of The Stimson Center, says.

In the article titled, “Pakistan With or Without Musharraf”, he says the longer Musharraf stays, the greater the difficulties Washington can expect on all three fronts– counter-terrorism, control of the country’s nuclear assets, and in handling bilateral ties.

Krepon also argues that the corporate interests of the Pakistan Army with respect to the above three fronts “are unlikely to change appreciably if or when Musharraf goes”.

Pakistan’s domestic politics have become so abnormal that modest remedies now seem insufficient while near-term solutions, including the goal of free and fair national elections in January, appear improbable, he says.

SF Gate

By Anne Flaherty, Associated press Writer
Wed, November 21, 2007

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq shortly after the fall of Baghdad, said this week he supports Democratic legislation that calls for most troops to come home within a year.

His comments come as welcomed ammunition for the Democratic-controlled Congress in its standoff with the White House on war spending. This month, the House passed a $50 billion bill that would pay for combat operations but sets the goal that combat end by Dec. 15, 2008. The White House threatened to veto the measure, and Senate Republicans blocked it from passing.

Keep reading . . .

If nothing else, Bush has won admiration, even from some opposed to his policies, for being a man of strong convictions, a modern-day Luther declaiming “here I stand, I can do no other.” Others, however, contend that the touted convictions are nothing more than lies.

But why not give the president the benefit of the doubt? Let us grant that he really believes that the market knows best; that global warming is a crock; that destroying embryos to save lives is wrong; that tax cuts help the poor and swell the nation’s coffers; that the more we are watched, the greater our security; that federally-administered universal health care is a plague on all houses, including those of the uninsured; that a “liberated” Iraq is the short fuse to a democratic Middle East, toppling one tyrannical Muslim regime after another, with peace between Israelis and Palestinians as icing on the cake — the world made safe for American triumphalist values.

Let us grant the president all this and pat him on the back for having convictions. But the road to hell is paved with strong convictions. Page after page of history is a register of crimes and follies perpetrated by strong-willed leaders, blood-soaked affirmations of Nietzsche’s aphorism that “convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.”

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Yahoo News, Wed Nov. 21, 9:51 AM ET BAGHDAD

(AFP) – A US general on Wednesday acknowledged Iran‘s role in helping quell the bloodshed in Iraq, saying Tehran had contributed to stopping the flow of arms across the border into the country.

Lieutenant General James Dubik, who is in charge of training Iraqi security forces, said Tehran was keeping to its pledge of stopping the smuggling of weapons to Iraqi extremists. “We are all thankfull for the commitment Iran has made to reduce the flow in weapons, explosives and training (of extremists) in Iraq,” Dubik told reporters in Baghdad’s Green Zone.

Continued . . .

BBC News, November 21, 2007

Ms Plame said Mr McClellan’s excerpt was “shocking”

A former White House press secretary has said the US president was involved in misinforming the public over the leaking of a CIA agent’s identity. In an excerpt from his book, Scott McClellan says George W Bush helped mislead the public over the role in the affair of two White House aides.

The CIA agent, Valerie Plame, says her identity was leaked because her diplomat husband opposed the Iraq war.

Keep reading . . .

Published on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 by The Guardian/UK

Despite bouts of superficial self-criticism, when it comes to war, the US media excel at following the White House line

by Norman Solomon

At times, long after laying the big flagstones on the path to war, mainstream US media outlets resolve to be more independent next time. And why not? As Mark Twain commented, “It’s easy to quit smoking. I’ve done it hundreds of times.”When the president and his team set out to prepare the media ground for war, they can rely on a repetition compulsion that’s widespread in the American press. Major outlets seem unable to resist White House agenda-setting for war. Cases in point span decades, from Vietnam and the Dominican Republic to Grenada and Panama, to Iraq and Yugoslavia, to Afghanistan and Iraq again – with Iran likely to join the list next year.

Along the way, beginning with the 1991 Gulf war, the better performances of the British press compared to the American media – high jumps over low standards – have not prevented the British government from requiting the worst aspects of the special relationship by supplying troops and weaponry for US-initiated war efforts based on deception.

The political feasibility of waging these tragic wars can be largely traced to the US media’s reflexive capitulations to the administration in Washington – providing stenographic services far more often than tough scrutiny.

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